Saturday, November 21, 2015

Syrian Pill

Tiny pill fueling Syria’s war and turning fighters into Drug Addicts

Captagon
pills are displayed along with a cup containing cocaine at an office of
the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, Anti-Narcotics Division, in
Beirut in 2010. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images/File)

As The Post's Liz Sly recently noted,
the war in Syria has become a tangled web of conflict dominated by
"al-Qaeda veterans, hardened Iraqi insurgents, Arab jihadist ideologues
and Western volunteers."On the surface, those competing actors are fueled by an overlapping mixture of ideologies and political agendas.Just below it, experts suspect, they're powered by something else: Captagon.

A
tiny, highly addictive pill produced in Syria and widely available
across the Middle East, its illegal sale funnels hundreds of millions of
dollars back into the war-torn country's black-market economy each
year, likely giving militias access to new arms, fighters and the
ability to keep the conflict boiling, according to the Guardian.“Syria
is a tremendous problem in that it’s a collapsed security sector,
because of its porous borders, because of the presence of so many
criminal elements and organized networks,” the U.N. Office on Drugs and
Crime (UNDOC) regional representative, Masood Karimipour, told Voice of America.

“There’s a great deal of trafficking being done of all sorts of illicit
goods — guns, drugs, money, people. But what is being manufactured
there and who is doing the manufacturing, that’s not something we have
visibility into from a distance.”A powerful amphetamine tablet
based on the original synthetic drug known as "fenethylline," Captagon
quickly produces a euphoric intensity in users, allowing Syria's
fighters to stay up for days, killing with a numb, reckless abandon.

"You
can't sleep or even close your eyes, forget about it," said a Lebanese
user, one of three who appeared on camera without their names for a BBC Arabic documentary that aired in September. "And whatever you take to stop it, nothing can stop it.""I felt like I own the world high," another user said. "Like I have power nobody has. A really nice feeling.""There was no fear anymore after I took Captagon," a third man added.According to a Reuters report published in 2014, the war has turned Syria into a "major" amphetamines producer -- and consumer."Syrian
government forces and rebel groups each say the other uses Captagon to
endure protracted engagements without sleep, while clinicians say
ordinary Syrians are increasingly experimenting with the pills, which
sell for between $5 and $20," Reuters reported.Captagon has been
around in the West since the 1960s, when it was given to people
suffering from hyperactivity, narcolepsy and depression, according to the Reuters report.

By the 1980s, according to Reuters, the drug's addictive power led most countries to ban its use.The
United State classified fenethylline ("commonly known by the trademark
name Captagon") as a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled
Substances Act in 1981, according to the National Criminal Justice Reference ServiceStill, the drug didn't exactly disappear.VOA
notes that while Westerners have speculated that the drug is being used
by Islamic State fighters, the biggest consumer has for years been
Saudi Arabia.

In 2010, a third of the world's supply — about seven tons —
ended up in Saudi Arabia, according to Reuters. VOA estimated that as
many as 40,000 to 50,000 Saudis go through drug treatment each year.

“My
theory is that Captagon still retains the veneer of medical
respectability,” Justin Thomas, an assistant professor of psychology and
psychotherapy at the UAE’s Zayed University and author of
"Psychological Well-Being in the Gulf States," toldVOA in 2010.

“It may not be viewed as a drug or narcotic because it is not associated with smoking or injecting.”Five
years later, production of Captagon has taken root in Syria — long a
heavily trafficked thoroughfare for drugs journeying from Europe to the
Gulf States — and it has begun to blossom."The breakdown of
state infrastructure, weakening of borders and proliferation of armed
groups during the ... battle for control of Syria, has transformed the
country from a stopover into a major production site," Reuters reported."Production
in Lebanon's Bekaa valley – a traditional centre for the drug – fell
90% last year from 2011, with the decline largely attributed to
production inside Syria," the Guardian noted.Cheap and easy to
produce using legal materials, the drug can be purchased for less than
$20 a tablet and is popular among those Syrian fighters who don't follow
strict interpretations of Islamic law, according to the Guardian.Doctors report that the drug has dangerous side effects, including psychosis and brain damage, according to the BBC.Ramzi Haddad, a Lebanese psychiatrist, told Reuters that the drug produces the typical effects of a stimulant."You're talkative, you don't sleep, you don't eat, you're energetic," he said.According to the news service:

A
drug control officer in the central city of Homs told Reuters he had
observed the effects of Captagon on protesters and fighters held for
questioning."We would beat them, and they wouldn't feel the
pain. Many of them would laugh while we were dealing them heavy blows,"
he said. "We would leave the prisoners for about 48 hours without
questioning them while the effects of Captagon wore off, and then
interrogation would become easier."

One secular
ex-Syrian fighter who spoke to the BBC said the drug is tailor-made for
the battlefield because of its ability to give soldiers superhuman
energy and courage:

"So the brigade
leader came and told us, 'this pill gives you energy, try it,' " he
said. "So we took it the first time. We felt physically fit. And if
there were 10 people in front of you, you could catch them and kill
them. You're awake all the time. You don't have any problems, you don't
even think about sleeping, you don't think to leave the checkpoint. It
gives you great courage and power. If the leader told you to go break
into a military barracks, I will break in with a brave heart and without
any feeling of fear at all — you're not even tired."

Another
ex-fighter told the BBC that his 350-person brigade took the pill
without knowing if it was a drug or medicine for energy."Some people became addicted to it and it will damage the addicts," he said. "This is the problem."